Those two things don't necessarily go together, but I encountered both on this mornings bow hunt. PA has a 3 day junior/senior doe hunt in which both are permitted to use rifles, management technique designed at lowering the overall deer numbers. I live in a housing development in a rather heavily populated area andhunt the funnels and patches of woods that surround the development. These areas are decent sized but not large enough for what I would consider rifle hunting territory. Needless to say I was wrong. About 7:30 a shot rings out about 300 yards below me. Close enough to startle me in the otherwise silent woodlot. Fifteen minutes after the shot, I see dad and son walking my way, sons head hung low, dad patting him on the back. Let's assume a miss. They continue walking past me and I give the obligatory whistle. Both wave and continue on. Now that my area is thoroughy disturbed, I sit back down and wait for them to hopefully push a buck my way. No dice, at about 9:25, a hear a loud roar coming form the hill above me. I assume airplane, again my assumptions were wrong. A hot air balloon flies directly overhead, barely above the treetops. I hear the passengers discussing the beauty of the fall foliage. At that point, I determined that the archery gods were not smiling down on me this morning and I made my descent. Lets hope the evening is less eventful, and maybe I'll only see deer.

Now thats not something you see everyday in the woods.
Good luck this afternoon.

I have had the Hot air ballon expirience..scared the crap outta me!! I was in a tree all was still..the canopy of the trees kept me from seeing the sky. The hot air balloon was just apparently cruisin along and dipped too low..he hit the burner when he was over my head!!! I thought The sky was falling!

Thank God!!!!
Bummer. HCH

I too had the hot air baloon treatment last year.....do these guys purposely wait til' they're sitting on your head to hit that burner.[:-]They about took me out of my treestand.

I was out this Am and the PA gods weren't smiling on me either......I hunted a farm advacent to a heavily hunted state game land stocked with pheasants with the hope that if I don't see some early natural movement maybe one of these guys would send a buck my way.

208 shots later (seriously I was counting.) I decided to call it an morning with no deer sighted.

Same thing as happened to me as far as air balloons and like Matt, I never heard them coming until the fired it up, scared the heck out of me. I thought the woods was fall up on me...lol They didn't know I was there but man did I know they were.

And they do scare deer, I took a balloon ride one fall and watched deer bolt from under us.